Effect of Romanticizing Suicide and Stockholm Syndrome in Literature (The Dark Side of
Literature That Not Enough People Talk About)
People have always been fascinated by great acts of love and devotion to that one special
person. Like in the ending of cheesy, sappy romantic books where the guy shows the girl how
much he loves her by helping her fix all her problems or how he tells the girl about the sacrifices
he made for her and how she bewitched him body and soul. We love scenes like that! We tear
up, get goosebumps, and smile like fools in love. It’s a fact. We all do it. But why though? Is it a
sort of escapism from our not-so-perfect lives? Could be. However, romanticizing the pleasant,
uplifting feelings we get from healthy love stories or positive morals and lessons learned when
reading literature is not what I will be discussing today. What if instead of being affected by
something good that leaves us happy, optimistic and open to life more… we get affected in a
way that might be considered a danger to ourselves and others.
Like in the previously used example of Pride and Prejudice, it’s a normal enough love
story with a couple who falls in love and end up together in the end. But what if the romance in a
certain book is a bit unusual. What if it defies what society considers normal and introduces new
ideas that are harmful yet because it happens in a romantic book with characters who are deeply
in love, people start to romanticize the actions that the lovers take. Some books feature explicit
abuse and violence towards themselves or people around them and because it happens in the
name of love, people romanticize and even glorify that kind of abuse and violence. There’s
nothing wrong about reading violent or dark books but there are certain things when done in the
name of love kind of blurs the lines between what is supposed to be socially acceptable and
what’s not. I know you might think it’s not a big deal but I’ll tell you why I thought of this and
give you an example of each (Suicide and Stockholm) that affected people in a way people
would never expect.
1) Suicide (The Sorrows of Young Werther)
“Ah! it is but a little thing, death.”
Suicide is portrayed as the number one answer to a lot of failed love stories. Your
lover doesn’t love you back? Commit suicide. Your lover dies? Commit suicide. Your
lover can’t marry you and ends up married to someone else? Guess what? Taking your
own life seems like the ultimate love and devotion move or even desperation because
one can’t be with the person they love and they just can’t bear it. A lot of authors
wrote about it and did it like Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway and Sara Teasdale.
I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.
That was from Sara Teasdale’s poem I Shall Not Care. It was speculated to be her
suicide note and it was addressed to a former lover. So not just book characters that
end up committing suicide because of love. It got so romanticized in literature that it
has become the norm to have someone kill himself because he can’t be with his
beloved.
Shall we go back in time to try to see how that idea first originated and how it
affected people? There’s a novel called “The Sorrows of Young Werther”. It is an
autobiographical epistolary novel that was first published in 1774 in Germany by a
German author called Gothe. It’s basically a novel written as a series of documents.
The usual form is letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are
sometimes used. Recently, they added electronic "documents" such as recordings and
radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use. So, it’s a story about unrequited
love, is presented as a collection of letters written by Werther, a young artist of a
sensitive and passionate nature. he meets Charlotte, a beautiful young girl who takes
care of her siblings after the death of their mother. Werther falls in love with Charlotte
despite knowing beforehand that she is engaged to a man named Albert, eleven years
her senior. spends the next few months cultivating a close friendship with her. After a
trip out of town, he comes back to find her married to the man she was engaged to. He
becomes tortured to be reminded everyday that she will never love him back. Since,
Charlotte knows how he feels about her, out of respect for her husband she tells him
not to visit her anymore. Eventually, he shoots himself in the head and dies and
Charlotte doesn’t even come to his funeral.
This piece of literature, because of how realistic it felt to be in the form of letters
and diary entries made people feel it so deeply that they were hugely affected by it.
They found it so romantic that Werther couldn’t get his beloved to love him back that
he chose to die over living without her. And, Suddenly, that flipped a switch in so
many people. It started a series of copycat suicides which were first labeled as “The
Werther Phenomenon”. Young men started to wear yellow pants and blue jackets
exactly like Werther did. They used the same method to kill themselves in acts of
hopelessness. At the scenes of death, they often found a copy of the novel near the
people who died along with suicide letters that explains how they couldn’t live
anymore because of love-related problems. That resulted in the book being banned
from so many countries like Denmark and Italy.
“Thus, with a kiss I die.”
This takes me to my next example. Romeo and Juliet. Those were Romeo’s last
words before taking his own life to join his beloved who he thought was dead. Yet,
another novel that romanticizes suicide and promotes the myth that suicide is beautiful
and the ultimate showing of love. Literature makes it seem like suicide is the answer. It
will solve all your problems like love lost, sadness, grief, depression. I actually love
Romeo and Juliet. I grew up reading and hearing about it. But when we take a minute to
think about it, it really does promote and romanticize suicide. We all know what it’s
about. A young girl falls in love with a young boy. Their families are in disagreement.
They think that life is over for them if they are not together and end up committing
suicide. And that is considered to be the most romantic thing ever?! A couple who
knew each other for less than a week and end up killing themselves for it? Not a couple
who face life’s challenges, obstacles and hurdles thrown their way together but a couple
of teenagers who end up killing themselves in the name of love? A couple of Juliet’s
last words were “O Happy Dagger!”. She even describes the dagger as happy to be
helping her commit such an act. Seeing absolutely nothing wrong with what they were
doing. But since its all for the sake of love then it’s okay right? All’s fair in love and
war, I guess.
Suicide and characters taking their own lives in Literature is a serious topic that,
according to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, if not handled, read and taught
carefully and responsibly will lead to serious consequences. These kinds of books help
normalize and glorify suicide and make it look like the answer to all of your problems
and may even spread their possibility of happening to easily shaped people who might
have never thought of such extreme measures.
2) Stockholm Syndrome and Lima Syndrome (The Collector)
Another thing that is glorified in novels since it’s done in the name of love and all is
kidnapping and the captive falling in love with her captor when she discovers how lonely
and misunderstood, he really is. And how he didn’t mean to kidnap her but he was just so
fascinated by her and couldn’t help but have her near. That is called Stockholm
Syndrome. Or vice versa and the captor starts having second thoughts about the
abductions and falls for his victim and sympathizes with her and eventually tries to help
her and they live happily ever after. That is called Lima Syndrome. This is a recurring
theme in books, movies and shows that romanticizes something that quiet frankly super
scary and weird. Plus they both need shrinks.
I have an example of a book called “The Collector” by John Fowles. It was published
in 1963. It is the definition of a man clinically diagnosed with Lima Syndrome and a
woman with Stockholm Syndrome. It’s about a lonely, psychotic young is socially
underdeveloped man, Frederick, who kidnaps a female art student, Miranda and holds her
captive in his cellar. He feels lonely, however, and wants to be with her. Since he is
unable to make any normal contact, he decides to abduct her in hopes of that if he keeps
her captive long enough, she will grow to love him. He drugs her and drags her to his
house. Throughout the course of the novel, the guy tries his hardest to make his captive
fall fo him by showering her with gifts and affection and the girl actually starts to
sympathize with him claiming that he’s just lonely and unable to make friends or meet
lovers on his own. However, in the case of this book that doesn’t stop the girl from trying
to escape and when she fails, she kills herself. (And I’d just like to say that this further
solidifies the fact that in literature Suicide is almost always used as the easy way out of
hardships). When Frederick discovers her body, he contemplates suicide himself but with
a sudden plot twist he decides that he won’t be killing himself after all but instead he
finds another girl to kidnap who looks exactly like Miranda.
As for the huge impact this piece of literature had on people, you won’t even believe
it. Well-known serial killers, rapists and kidnappers like Leonard Lake, Charles Ng,
Christopher Wilder and Robert Berdella have actually confessed that reading The
Collector was the inspiration or the justification of their actions! One of them, Robert
Berdella, was actually nicknamed The Collector! All of them combined have kidnapped,
killed and even raped 53 men and women. All of them read The Collector and had their
own copies of it.
3) Another Example (Sherlock Holmes)
Sherlock Holmes is considered to be one of the first and original archetype of the
Byronic Hero. He is supposed to be smart, handsome, arrogant, cunning, knows how to
manipulate people and at most times unfeeling and has no regard to other people other
than himself. Can I tell you something shocking now? All of that actually describes the
traits of a grade A charismatic sociopath. Yet, another example of something unhealthy
and is considered a mental health issue that we glorify is Sociopathy. Sherlock Holmes
even admits it one time saying “I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research."
As much as all of what I said is difficult to digest, especially to authors who
unintentionally affect people dangerously, we can’t blame them because technically they
did nothing wrong. Freedom of speech and all that. But, to whoever says that Literature
doesn’t affect people should think twice. Romanticizing and glorifying things like
Suicide or Abduction can really affect people who are easily swayed to do things, or
people who have thought about them in the back of their heads but never actually
considered them. When written badly and in a wrong way can lead to severe
repercussions that affect millions of people. Like in the example of the sorrows of young
Werther who made hundreds of people commit suicide because they thought it was the
end of his life or in The Collector who unintentionally created serial killers who did
exactly what his character did and they found it justifiable. I’m sure if he knew he would
be absolutely devastated to have that on his conscience. Obviously, we can’t limit an
author to write about certain things and steer clear of others because we can’t limit
someone’s creativity and voice that way. I know literature is supposed to make people
feel and is supposed to be controversial at times but all I’m saying is we have to
acknowledge that Literature can impact people based on what they read and is considered
glorified, romantic, or even a perfect solution to all their troubles. Authors have a
platform that they should responsibly because every single letter or word they write can
and will affect people. especially now during the internet age where it is easy to find
research and find what makes people tick and how to deal with it.